Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” is loved for its bawdy medieval texts and earworm tunes, but this choral blockbuster is described as a “scenic cantata.” So if you want to make a splash with it, why not give your audience plenty to look at as well as? That’s the philosophy behind this weekend’s production of “Carmina […]
David Raymond
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Still odd after all these years
Higher-brow critics may beg to differ, but if any play deserves to be called a classic American comedy, it’s “The Odd Couple.” Neil Simon’s study of the epic battle between Oscar Madison, slob, and Felix Ungar, fussbudget, is almost 50 years old now, and has been in the public consciousness rather consistently since its Broadway […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater Review: “The Winter’s Tale” by Rochester Community Players
Part domestic tragedy, part raucous comedy, mostly improbable fairy tale, “The Winter’s Tale” is one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing and confounding works. Rochester Community Players’ production of the show, running until the end of this month, is a well-conceived take on a play seldom seen but definitely worth seeing. As “The Winter’s Tale” begins, Leontes, […]
Posted inMusic
Rochester Bach Festival
When lists of the great composers are compiled, Johann Sebastian Bach is usually placed at or near the top. And at the top of Bach’s enormous and awesome musical output, many would place his two settings of the biblical Passion text: the story of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Bach’s “Saint Matthew […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater Review: “Closer Than Ever” by Everyone’s Theatre Company
If you’re not a musical-theater fanatic, you’ve probably never heard of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire. But if you enjoy theater songs, or just about any kind of songs, you definitely need to make their acquaintance. Everyone’s Theatre Company is providing a very entertaining survey of this team’s stellar work in the revue “Closer […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater Review: “The Hot L Baltimore” at Blackfriars
With “The Hot L Baltimore,” Blackfriars brings back an important play by an important American playwright, and does justice to an elusive piece. Lanford Wilson died in 2011, and his reputation seems to be undergoing that slight posthumous dip that many artists undergo. But I think he’ll eventually rate very high among American playwrights for […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
THEATER: A theater town
Anyone who believes that theater is a dying art has not spent much time in Rochester; we have always offered a remarkably full range of theater, for consumption and for participation. To use a word theater people enjoy, the Rochester theater scene is very textured; there’s a little of everything offered, and something for everybody […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater Review: Geva Theatre Center’s “Informed Consent”
Race is clearly a topic of interest at Geva. It is addressed very obviously in the recent “Clybourne Park,” and more subtly in “Informed Consent,” a brand-new play by Deborah Zoe Laufer in its world-premiere production. To make a very rough generalization, one play deals with race in terms of society, the other in terms […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Interview: Local performer Evan Harrington returns to Rochester in “Once”
Evan Harrington can probably count on a round of applause whenever he takes the Auditorium Theatre stage this week, as a member of the touring company of the hit Broadway musical “Once.” Harrington is returning home, one of many ambitious young people who got the opportunity to perform in school and in local theater groups […]
Posted inCulture
More local boys (and girls) done good
Rochester is definitely a town with a longstanding music and theater culture. With numerous area schools offering high-level music and theater programs, and many community-theater groups, it has been a training ground for a surprising number of actors who have gone on to fame on Broadway and in Hollywood. We’ve produced some actors who went […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater Review: Irish Players’ “Shining City” at MuCCC
The Irish Players’ “Shining City” is described as “an Irish ghost story for today,” but it’s not a shivers-around-the-campfire kind of ghost story, nor is it full of banshees or other Celtic heebie-jeebies. There is a ghost in it, or something described as a ghost, but Conor McPherson’s play is something more subtle and more […]
Posted inMusic
CLASSICAL | Pegasus Early Music
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) may not be a household name, but he was a decisive influence on a composer who certainly is: J.S. Bach, who according to legend once walked 250 miles to hear Buxtehude play the organ. Buxtehude’s music is not performed as frequently as Bach’s, but when it came to writing religious music combining […]
